The saga that keeps ticking and ticking

Empirical data! Real scientists have published the results of a study in the journal Nature comparing accuracy in Wikipedia to Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sadly, neither come out looking stellar.

"The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three."

And our own Mike Twidale is quoted, noting that the researchers didn't take into account the benefits of Wikipedia's extreme speed in updating. He also observes that readers need to shift their thinking about encyclopedias in terms of evaluating them on a 18-carat standard rather than a 24-carat one.

I guess the bottom line is that we still have to cross-check and verify. Sad but true.